Posted
by
Soulskillon Sunday November 08, 2009 @11:08AM
from the maximum-threat dept.

Unexpof writes "Users of jailbroken iPhones in Australia are reporting that their wallpapers have been changed by a worm to an image of '80s pop icon Rick Astley. This is the first time a worm has been reported in the wild for the Apple iPhone. According to a report by Sophos, the worm, which exploits users who have installed SSH and not changed the default password, hunts for other vulnerable iPhones and infects them. Users are advised to properly secure their jailbroken iPhones with a non-default password, and Sophos says the worm is not harmless, despite its graffiti-like payload: 'Accessing someone else's computing device and changing their data without permission is an offense in many countries — and just as with graffiti there is a cost involved in cleaning-up affected iPhones. ... Other inquisitive hackers may also be tempted to experiment once they read about the world's first iPhone worm. Furthermore, a more malicious hacker could take the code written by ikee and adapt it to have a more sinister payload.'"

the attempts Apple makes to maintain control of devices they have sold are not dissimilar to the fanaticism shown by some of the more unbalanced elements of the user-base. Beyond the pale.

If their selling strategy for the iPhone was more in line with their competitors, and it could be bought unlocked / without lockdowns on application installation, off-the-shelf as most rivals can, we probably wouldnt need the jailbreaking scene and nor would the virus be spreading this way.

The problem is not in the jailbreaking or unlocking of the phone. The problem is people installing OpenSSH but not changing the password (which it does ask you to) and thus allowing SSH-connections to their phone by everyone.

This isn't OpenSSH developers' problem. The jailbreaking utility should prompt you to change your root password. SSH is only allowing you to remotely log on the device, in the end if your password is weak/default, you shouldn't run an SSH server.

Perhaps the makers of OpenSSH should change the first-run behavior to require the user enter a new password in order to prevent this issue?

No. OpenSSH is a tool for allowing remote access to a host. It is not a password manager, login manager, etc. Such functions are best separated from OpenSSH. Perhaps it would be best if the jailbreak utility prompt for a root password or generate and providethe new SSH private key for the root account to allow for ssh key exchange logins and instruct the user to login via SSH to change the root password. Something like that.

It depends when you last jailbroke your iPhone. I did a jailbreak early on. I installed openSSH and changed the default password. I then found out that the phone entered an infinite loop of restarting the home screen and had to be forcibly restored.

The problem appears to be that the passwd binary on the phone is (deliberately?) broken so it generates incorrect hashes for the password entered. If you actually want to change your password then you need to jump through some hoops [matsimitsu.nl] to change it without using the usual passwd command.

The only rivals that are completely unlocked are Palm OS (which is a joke,) Windows Mobile, and Maemo.

Android and WebOS do at least allow you to install unsigned apps, but you don't get root access without a jailbreak, and BlackBerry and Symbian both require signed apps and don't even give root to most signed apps. Useful for things like tethering (although not required.)

As others have pointed out, I'm not talking about the modern OS that the Pre is running, and the Pixi will be running.

I'm talking about the ancient kludge-on-top-of-a-kludge single-tasking OS that was originally written for the (m68k-based) Pilot 1000 and 5000, and is now emulating the RAM-based filesystem on flash and emulating the 68k on an ARM, with "ARMlets" that punch down through the bottom of the OS to run outside of emulation, and with a "multitasking model" that makes MS-DOS TSRs look like a good i

In the case of WebOS, you have to be careful with the term "jailbreak". The process for WebOS is nothing remotely similar to what you have to do with an iPhone. In WebOS, it's a simple matter of entering one of two codes.

The other difference, of course, is that Palm wants people to hack on the Pre (and soon, the Pixi) as much as possible. They encourage the homebrew community, and don't even clamp down on apps that Sprint would prefer to not have on their phones like MyTether. (Sure, they don't have

And I agree with stillpixel. I wouldn't be shocked if Apple themselves had a hand in this.

Oh brother. Apple doesn't care what you do with the iPhone, but they do have to close the holes that enable jailbreaking because they're security holes through which Something Bad could go to Do Something Bad. It's one thing to say that Apple is actively against jailbreaking and otherwise doing whatever you want with the phone (a popular and ridiculous notion often bandied about here), but it's quite another thing to realize that they don't care all that much but still have to close the holes. Thinking t

Apple doesn't care what you do with the iPhone, but they do have to close the holes that enable jailbreaking because they're security holes through which Something Bad could go to Do Something Bad.

Apple absolutely does care what you do with the iPhone. That's why they've updated the ROM [iphonehacks.com] in newer 3Gs models to prevent jailbreaking.

If Apple was okay with jailbreaking, and just interested in closing security holes, they would work on those holes, rather than on preventing jailbreaking altogether. (In fact, that's exactly what Palm does do. One of the first methods to install apps on a Pre was to e-mail yourself a link to an application. Palm (rightfully) closed that hole, but left intact the ability to root a Pre.

And I agree with stillpixel. I wouldn't be shocked if Apple themselves had a hand in this.

Thinking that Apple someone had a hand in creating this "worm" for jailbroken iPhones is not only considerably misguided (and unfounded), it's utterly moronic.

I didn't say I believe that Apple had a hand in it. I said I wouldn't be shocked if they did. They've got a vested interest in keeping people from jailbreaking, and this kind of thing (especially because it's relatively innocuous) fits the bill.

"If Apple was okay with jailbreaking, and just interested in closing security holes, they would work on those holes, rather than on preventing jailbreaking altogether."

Ah, color me confused. Jailbreaking takes place through security holes. If they close the holes, as you suggest, then the phone can no longer be jailbroken. Or are they supposed to leave a backdoor specifically for jailbreaking?

In which case, you've now left a (known) hole in your system for someone (anyone) to exploit.

My position is that there shouldn't be such a concept as "jailbreaking". Users should not feel imprisoned within the iPhone OS. How much more secure does the OS have to be than BSD Unix? That's the base we're really talking about.

The idea that allowing users root access when [i]they're the ones administering the phone in the first place[/i] seems to me to be a huge fallacy. At some point, you have to trust that your users aren't morons.

Technically, it's the novaterm application (distributed w/ the SDK) that allows root access to the Pre. But the Pre needs to be in dev mode (w/ the konami code or the newer code) in order for the novaterm application to work.

Uuum... on what planet? I developed software for Symbian. And I can install anything I like on the Symbian device. Even modify system files. On Maemo (I presume we're talking about the N900 here, you have root access right there. No jailbreaking. No tricks. Just a shell command to go to root mode. Which is expected,as it's Linux. And not that fake "Linux" that is called Android.)

I'm not disputing Maemo, and I listed that in my list of fully-open to the user OSes.

But, I was under the impression that S60 3rd Edition had mandatory code signing, and applications only got full root access if the manufacturer of the device signed the program - not if the developer rubberstamped the app, not if the user had the app signed for their device. Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary. (Symbian devices aren't the most common here, and Nokia has never sold a Symbian phon

Depends on the version of the OS and policy of the device maker, I think.
A few years back I was developing against a Nokia E61 which ran S60r3 (i.e. Symbian 9) and it could only run signed binaries, which made testing on real hardware a nightmare.
My understanding was that they got tough with this in version 9 - earlier versions (like the S80 communicator I had before) would happily run unsigned apps.

As of what version of the BB OS? I was under the impression that you had to purchase a signing key (cheap, but still) to sign applications, and even then, there was no root access to the "filesystem," to try to prevent piracy.

(Palm OS uses security by obscurity on its programs+databases "filesystem," but NVBackup and FileZ break that obscurity rather easily.)

I have a jailbroken iphone. But othet then the Cydia and ICY applicaions icons which are installed during the redsnow jailbrake I have not deliberately installed any other non-itunes apps. Do I have ssh running but not know it after I jail break?

Also, you can use SBSettings to disable ssh. ITs easy to get to, just slide your finger accross the top of the screen and a config manager drops down. Click it on or off. Changing a password AND disabling it until you need it makes a lot of sense.

...why is there even a default password on sshd for the jailbroken phones?

Probably because the people writing an SSH client for a hacked version of a cell phone have little or no incentive to spend time working on details like requiring the user to input a password when the client is installed. Look if you're going to jailbreak your cellphone and start adding network services like SSH, with very limited user types, you should probably have a clue what you're doing in the first place. I put this right up there with people running Apache on their home Windows XP machine and getting compromised when they don't update it regularly.

The jailbreak installs very little by default. Only users who installed SSHD deliberately, leave it running all the time, and didn't change the password are impacted.

Lots of hype, not as big of a deal as it seems. (And, frankly, wouldn't be a big deal if Apple would open up enough of their APIs for the typical apps most people seem to use when they are Jailbroken could work...)

Nah, I checked my phone and no SSHD running on it. I had to install cydia and then OpenSSH to get it installed and the instructions to CHANGE THE PASSWORD are pretty clearly right there. This shouldn't be a big deal...

The root "account" on an iPhone is the same for all phones but is normally disabled. At least at some points in time, a jailbreak consisted of enabling SSH and that root account. SSHing into your phone using that account was the only way you could to anything else - it WAS the break.

Admittedly now, with more user friendly jailbreaks, SSH could ask you to change the password when you install it.

My phone is Jailbroken but Cydia wasn't on it. I fired up Putty and nope, connection rejected. Tried to install SSH with Rock, it failed claiming that it didn't have Superuser privs. I fired up blacKra1n and installed Cydia. During the install Cydia appeared to install SSH but still no connection. I went in and reinstalled SSH, now I got a connection with the default password. But wait, at the bottom of the SSH install screen where it tells you how to use it they TELL YOU TO CHANGE THE PASSWORD! they also provide you a link to an article detailing HOW TO DO THAT. At this point I already had an SSH connection so I issued a passwd and changed it. TaDa, that hard to do - sheesh! I also installed an interesting little tool called Toggle SSH, gee guess what that does very well? Yup, blocks SSH connections at the press of a button - like a toggle;-)

So, I had to jump through hoops to install the damned thing, then I received CLEAR instructions on how to change the default password, AND there's a simple to use FREE program out there that disables it. Obviously it might get installed as part of other things depending upon how you jailbroke but come on, they could not have made this too much easier to fix! If people are getting spanked by this well, perhaps they should have been a little more cognizant when they jailbroke? It's not hard to fix via any computer with SSH on it and you can even load a terminal program local to the phone to fix it....

Makes sense to me, wondered about that actually. It's off on my machine! Well at least I hope so, the app prevents me from contacting it at least. I'd agree that killing the daemon is a good idea for batt life reasons...

Because the people writing software packages for jailbroken phones don't actually know very much about what they are doing?

The just quickly ported SSH and let it use the default passwords, which aren't unique. Which was fine before the phone had anything that used the password file other than UID info. Now that something is authenticating from it, its a bad thing, the fact that its for remote network access makes it a horrible thing.

There is a reason Apple doesn't want every douche bag in the world to be

Ars technica reported a similar case in the Netherlands about a week ago. A teenage "hacker" replaced the wallpaper with one showing an alert that told the user to give him 5 euros for instructions to remove the "virus". Full article [arstechnica.com]

As a response to this, T-Mobile is now in the progress of installing firewall software so phones on their network can't communicate with each other, making similiar hacks in the future a lot more difficult.

Actually, most of the jailbreaking guides did make a big deal of changing your password, back when installing SSH was a required part of the process. Apparently when you install SSH through Cydia today it also suggests you change the password. So the people who got hacked ignored a clear warning.

Once you connect your phone to the Internet, device to device connections are sort of the default. You have to purposely block incoming connections to prevent it.

Also those being hacked could be using old firmware versions. Back in the old (1.1.3.) days the passwd command installed with the jailbreak was broken and users were advised [flipsidereality.com] not to use it.

don't click the link. i was fooled. the posting and comments above are sophisticated hacks to get you to click the link and be rickrolled. the tactic recently attempted here: http://bit.ly/3Xdrd [bit.ly]

If you are too stupid to change the default password on the SSH server running on your iPhone, you shouldn't have a jailbroken iPhone. You should leave the damn software alone so that Big Daddy Jobs can take care of security for you. Come back and see us jailbreakers when you get to wear your big boy panties.

I think we can no longer use pure "Market Share" as an excuse for the current dearth of malware on Linux platforms. This exploit targets only those who are savvy enough to be able to install sshd on their iphone, yet are too ignorant to know or care that there is a default password that should be changed. That's gotta be a really limited target group, IMHO.

The majority of people who jailbreak their phones intially do it just to unlock their iPhones.

Here in Canada, carriers refuse to unlock even phones paid in full. Not only does it limit the freedom of consumers but since all carriers are in on it, it smacks of collusion.

Now that there are multiple GSM carriers in Canada (Bell, Telus, Rogers/Fido), I encourage all of my fellow Canadians to write to the CRTC mailto:info@ccts-cprst.ca [mailto] and their local Member of Parliament to force the carriers to provide an

Yeah, it's the same kind of thing as Windows... Like if a user installed a remote management protocol, then left the default password on it, and then wondered why they got hacked so easily...

Not to mention this is NOT apple's software, or anything that apple sanctioned on their phone. It is from hacked phones. Sadly, this will do nothing but make Apple more sure that they should not open up the iPhone platform more.

Sadly, this will do nothing but make Apple more sure that they should not open up the iPhone platform more.

...which is complete BS! Whether Apple opens up the platform or not will not depend on an issue like this. It will depend on their vision on how to make money and keep it selling. If they allow an ssh-server in the future, knowing this, they will force the user to change the password to something else.

I am reminded of those "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" commercials. So, Mac's "little brother" I guess is susceptible to the same plagues PCs are.

Dude . . . it has nothing to do with Mac security. They've installed a third party application on their iPhone -- a service, no less. It's like giving out your house key to everyone, then complaining about how ineffective your house locks are. There are a couple of security practices being ignored by the end user here -- and these are users that, knowing how to jailbreak an iPhone, should know better.

1. Never leave a default password.

2. Never install a service if you don't need it. (Okay, maybe some DO need it, but I doubt all of them.)

The same applies to Windows. Windows is riddled with security problems, hence 75% of windows viruses still work, whereas less than.001% of mac viruses still work (if even that). But even so, many "security problems" in Windows are not the fault of Windows, but of the user running it. It doesn't matter how perfect your burglar alarm is if you don't turn it on.

On a lighter note:

Dark Helmet: "Give us the combination to the air shield!"

King Roland: "All right! All right. It's 1-2-3-4-5."

Dark Helmet: "That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! That's the kind of combination an idiot would have on his luggage."

[enter president Skroob]

President Skroob: "Did you get the combination to the air shield?"

Dark Helmet: "Yes! It's 1-2-3-4-5."

President Skroob: "That's amazing! I have the same combination on my luggage!"

Where do you get the iPhone has a large market share? The latest numbers from IDC [idc.com] suggest Apple has about 17% market share in the smartphone market. In the entire phone market, they're probably not even in the double digits.

It's worth noting that the kind of person who compiles these statistics doesn't use quite the same terminology as everyone else. Smartphone only covers the top end of what most people would think of as a smartphone. The (much larger) rest of this market is comprised of things called 'feature phones,' which includes thing that were smartphones a couple of years ago. It's not just a simple split between dumb phones that make class and send SMS and smartphones which do other stuff too; they split the market

When I was working in the industry, the definitions used was pretty straightforward:

A smartphone is a phone that can run 3rd party applications.A feature phone can't run 3rd party applications. But it does have built in applications significantly beyond the basic phone, contacts and SMS features.

That's not quite as arbitrary as it may at first sound. Being able to run 3rd party applications implies an OS with general purpose APIs. And that justification gives rise to another small category of phones. Closed

The vulnerability does not happen on any iPhone coming directly from Apple. It's only devices that are jailbroken, then only devices that have sshd installed, and then only devices where those users left the default password in place because, hey - who is going to scan for an iPhone in a coffee shop?

I agree generally with your point about a monoculture, but this is not it. It's a stupid default on a security tool shipped by a third party, that a smaller percentage of users will have (though the last I head the jailbroken iPhone population was north of a million so it's still significant).

Cellular phone + RTFM or it will get broke into = _serious_ usability flaw

Yes, but what makes you think jailbreaking apps writers are interested in usability? It seems to me that if you are taking a device and making it perform outside its manufacturer-specified parameters, you are taking that responsibility upon yourself. If you are using your own tools or something provided by a third party is irrelevant.

How is this worse (responsibility-wise) than having a phone bricked because of a botched jailbreakin